Train Hard, Live Easy

Create your own haven of recreation within the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Find yourself a few hours a week -- only a fraction of what you spend for your job, your friends, your family and all the small daily obligations. Don’t think so little of you that you won’t allow yourself some care time and don’t waste this precious space with empty, meaningless stuff. Use it to bring you forward and start challenging yourself. It will pay off.

For me, the best way to achieve this in physical terms is weight training with main emphasize on the basic, heavy compound lifts, spiced up with some high intensity interval training (HIIT) and additional joint mobility, flexibility and stability work.

Such a workout never takes more than it gives back. Every set and every repetition is an investment in your body and, thus, in your health. We are talking nothing less than quality of life here. You think I exaggerate? Then go ahead and drag yourself through your predetermined daily schedule of predictable behavior only to find a little excitement in silly reality TV shows, pictures of undressed women on the internet and getting drunk at the weekends. But is this really everything you ask for?

Sensible and hard physical training has an impact on your life that goes far beyond the time you’re spending in the gym. It provides you with a goal, something to work towards. It lifts you above the meaningless stuff and puts you completely in charge of your own success. There is no one to lean on and no one to blame. There are no shortcuts, no quick fixes, and no excuses. There is no way of BSing yourself because the numbers on the weight plates don't lie. And there is some insight to be gathered from spending time under a heavy loaded bar, too. You’ll put down the shiny fitness magazines with their arbitrary “Workouts of the Month” and “Beverly Hills Diet Plans”, you will start ignoring the shameless after-midnight infomercials with their appeal to everyone’s desire for results without actually doing something. You’ll stop caring about what keyboard heroes say on the internet and what advertisement wants to sell you. You cut through the bullshit because you are making progress with what you do.

You’ve got no time in the gym for the catty beauty queen approach, no time for wobbling around on a vibrating pseudo ab-stability device with a belly reduction fat loss program (why people still fall for the ridiculous myth of spot fat removal is beyond me), no time for a 30 minutes moderate heart beat increasing stroll on the treadmill. You’ve got no time for the lukewarm take because you are busy working on the real stuff, the stuff that makes you sweat. You are not one of those people who confuse mere activity with real accomplishment. You are not interested in „Hollywood Muscles” -- all show and no go -- you want genuine performance and constant improvement. You know that the fundamental lifts with heavy ass weights will soon enough carve your body’s look far above average.

Training will make you lean, healthy and powerful. You don’t have to worry about your calorie intake anymore because your workout schedule lists regularly something like squatting twice your bodyweight for five sets and sprinting (well, crawling) up a 200 steps flight of stairs afterwards. I’ll take that last piece of pie - thank you. Smart training will increase your ability on any physical activity. You’ll be able to get stuff done. You’ll be able to catch the bus without being out of breath. You’ll rediscover your body. You’ll move more efficiently and, dare I say it, gracefully with a better sense of body awareness. You will get strong.

You'll become detached from those stupid little things that used to annoy you and you’ll stop caring about idiotic people who drain your energy for nothing. Somebody cut your line at the coffee shop? Well, fuck him. You just had a balls to the wall workout including two new PRs. What did he accomplish? Trivial stuff and other people's negative behavior become less and less important to you as you are in a state of constant self-improvement. If you are permanently progressing in your training and move forward with your life you just don't care anymore about irrelevant crap. It’s hard to break somebody who regularly puts himself in an all-out war against his weaker self; who finds himself constantly at the crossroad of success or defeat; who deliberately seeks the pain and then pushes through it. Sometimes the fun stuff hurts a bit, but that’s half the joy, isn’t it? Think exhaustion and tears and vomit and gallons of sweat. To be confronted with your limits and expanding them on a regular basis will make you humble and strong at the same time.

I know, it is far more tempting to make yourself comfortable on the couch in your cozy home watching “Dancing With The Stars” than it is to sprint up a muddy hill, your face marred with dust and sweat, only to do a set of chin ups on the rusty old lamp post at its top. I am guilty of this too. But then again, you are all you’ve got - don’t compromise yourself and start kicking some ass.

Train hard, live easy.